Plains Indians
Little Bighorn
A major battle fought in Montana. This is where General George Armstrong Custer was ultimately defeated by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.
Wounded Knee
At the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the US Army was sent into end the Ghost Dance performed by Dakota Sioux. Fighting ensued and nearly 300 Sioux were killed. This is the last major clash between US gov and Plains Indians.
Dawes Act
Law that gave the President authority to divide up Indian lands into individual allotments for Indians to live away from the tribe. Those who chose to do this were granted citizenship. This was designed to force Native Americans to assimilate into American culture by destroying their tribal way of life.
Dakota War/Sioux Uprising
One of the first major armed battles between this tribe and US military and white settlers. It occurred in what was then Minnesota territory to reclaim their ancestral lands.
black hills
Sacred land of the Sioux Indians
Plains Indians Tribes
Sioux, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Navajo, Nez Perce, Shoshoni
Sand Creek Massacre
US forces under the leadership of Colonel John Chivington attacked a village in the Colorado territory killing between 30-163 Arapaho and Cheyenne (mostly women and children)
Nez Perce
Under the leadership of Chief Joseph, the tribe fled toward Canada after the Treaty of Walla Walla (1855) was violated by the US Gov. They were captured just short of the Canadian border.
Frederick Jackson Turner
Wrote The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Plains Indians
description of the many tribes that inhabited the west prior to white settlement
relationships among Plains Indians
did not always get along; tribes themselves were subdivided into "bands"
buffalo
hunted and used by the Plains Indians; easy to hunt as they were large with poor eyesight and poor sense of smell
Sioux
largest of the Plains Indians Tribes; means"enemy" or "snake"
"Great American Desert"
what early settlers referred to the west as; believed that farming was not possible
